Iran’s belligerence across the Persian Gulf shows that regional chaos is key to its strategy.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates — For years, Iran’s theocratic government has warned it would blanket the Middle East with missile and drone fire if it felt its existence was threatened.

Now, the Islamic Republic is doing just that.

Since the US and Israel went to war on Saturday and killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran has launched thousands of drones and ballistic missiles targeting Israel, US military bases and embassies in the region and energy facilities across the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, Iran fires missiles at Turkey and drones target Azerbaijan territory.

Iran’s basic strategy is to instill fear about the dangers of a wider war in the hope that US allies will apply enough pressure to halt its operations. A protracted conflict with American and Israeli casualties could work in Iran’s favor.

The trouble is, the barrage-your-neighbor strategy can also backfire.

Iran’s first priority is to get out of the war with its state institutions, said Ellie Geranmayeh, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“Iran is increasing the cost of this US military operation and regionalizing it from the beginning, as they have promised if America resumes war with Iran,” he said. The US joined Israel last June in a 12-day war targeting nuclear enrichment sites. Iran maintains its program peacefully, although its officials have threatened to pursue a bomb while enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels.

By causing casualties and disrupting energy production to drive up oil and gas prices, Iran’s leaders believe that either America’s allies or a volatile public will pressure US President Donald Trump to back down.

“The Iranians are basically banking on gorging him and exhausting him and his allies to the point where they basically have a diplomatic off-ramp,” Geranmayeh said. Trump is unpredictable, Geranmayeh said, but for now he is pushing for “an unconditional capitulation to his demands rather than a negotiated settlement.”

The US and Israel have carried out hundreds of airstrikes and inflicted heavy damage on Iranian government, military and nuclear targets. Although largely outgunned, Iran continues to fire ballistic missiles into Israel, killing 11 people and disrupting the lives of millions of Israelis. The most killed in the Gulf Arab states, the US-Israeli campaign killed 1,045 people in Iran.

After two years of war in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli public has little appetite for another protracted round of fighting. Polls indicate US public enthusiasm for protracted conflict.

The American and Israeli invasion came after a series of US-Iranian talks over Iran’s nuclear program and Western sanctions failed to reach a breakthrough.

Trump said on Monday that his four objectives were to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, destroy its navy, prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon and ensure it cannot continue to support allied armed groups.

Iran’s response spared no one in the region, not Oman, which brokered the latest round of nuclear talks and has maintained close ties with Iran for decades after helping the late Sultan Qaboos bin Said put down a rebellion in the 1970s.

Last week, as the US amassed warships in the region, Oman’s foreign minister rushed to Washington in a last-ditch effort to push ahead with nuclear talks.

Since then, Oman has been drawn into the conflict. An Omani port and ships off its coast have been targeted by Iranian missiles. Oman’s port in Duqm assisted with pre-deployment logistics for the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

Saudi Arabia, which has maintained a detente with Tehran since 2023, also crossed paths this week. Its Ras Tanura oil refinery has been attacked repeatedly and the US embassy in Riyadh has been hit by drones — an embarrassing moment for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has worked to develop a close relationship with Trump.

Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which have close ties to Trump, have also been repeatedly targeted.

There is a grim mathematical equation at play as the battle unfolds. Iran has a limited number of missiles and drones, the Gulf Arab states, the US and Israel all have a limited number of interceptor missiles capable of shooting down incoming fire.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Wednesday that thousands of Iranian missiles and drones had been intercepted and vaporized during the war. The Israeli military said it destroyed dozens of missile launchers.

On the American and Israeli side, the key is to target the missiles and their launchers. Both countries had to shoot down Iranian missiles several times during the war in June and in the Israel-Hamas war.

“Simply put, we’re focused on shooting all the things that can be shot at us,” said US Navy Adm. Brad Cooper, head of the American military’s Central Command.

A senior Western official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said Iran has several days’ worth of ballistic missiles if it continues to fire at its current rate, but that it may hold little ground for a longer mission.

The Israeli military says the number of Iranian launches has greatly decreased in recent days as a result of the airstrikes – although warning sirens wailed continuously across Israel from Wednesday to Thursday.

Hassan Alhassan, a Middle East expert at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Iran’s strategy of threatening energy security, intimidation and raising costs among Gulf and Western states is “regressive”.

“It will drive and push the Gulf states into closer alignment with the United States,” he said.

“Gulf states cannot sit idly by and continue to absorb unprovoked attacks on their critical infrastructure and civilians in Gulf cities,” Alhassan said. He said they were probably trying to get more weapons to intercept incoming fire and find ways to broker an end to the war.

Iran’s foreign minister has suggested that his country’s military units are now isolated and operate independently of any central government control, a possible excuse for Iran’s increasingly erratic fire.

“They are acting based on instructions – you know, general instructions – given to them in advance,” Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera on Sunday.

But after a Wednesday phone call with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani Araghchi, he “categorically rejected” his assertion that the Iranian missiles were only directed at American interests and not intended to target Qatar.

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Keaton reports from Geneva. Associated Press writers Danica Kirka and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.